With a name like 2020, this year really had the potential to be great. In some ways, it really was. A global pandemic brought people together on a scale that I have not seen in my lifetime. Scientists were able to make an extremely effective vaccine within a year! (They were able to move forward so “quickly” because many of the barriers that usually hold up vaccine development were lifted.) The social movements in the United States and around the world brought necessary awareness to society and will hopefully continue to bring on much-needed change. We’ve seen our lives completely turned upside down and people continue to persevere.
Hopefully, we all get through this experience with a greater appreciation of community, value for our health, and a sense to try to be better in this world. It’ll definitely be a year I don’t forget and will be telling my children and grandchildren about.
Svikki MD
Change is coming to my work schedule…again. If you’ve been following along over the past several weeks (thank you!), you will have noticed that I was reducing my clinic hours to make more time for the volume of patients in the hospital. This week, I finally had to make the move to focus primarily on hospital work.
It was getting to be too much trying to be in two places at once. There was plenty of work that needed to be done in the hospital. I’d have to jump over to the clinic in the afternoon to see patients. That also required time, follow up, and brainpower. I felt like I had to compromise my full commitment to either one side or the other.
Consequently, I spoke with the office manager and laid out observations I had made over the past three months. Physicians and nurses alike seemed frustrated. Doctors in the office were interrupted while with their clinic patients due to calls from the floor nurses. The floor nurses were having a hard time getting timely responses from the clinic docs. The doctors didn’t have time to take on admissions because they were busy in the clinic. However, bigger hospitals had to make room for more acute care patients. Clinic volumes were down so they didn’t really even need me in the office. The mid-levels had nearly empty schedules while they packed my 2.5 hours full.
So, moving forward, I will be solely in the hospital seeing patients and trying to keep our swing bed census around 10 patients. I’ll work in the clinic if many providers are out. However, I won’t have a clinic schedule per se.
Holidays in the Hospital
With the mid-levels out of the office for the holidays, my colleague and I were actually pretty busy in the office on Wednesday and Thursday morning. After the clinic closed Thursday at noon, I headed over to the hospital to see my 9 patients. A couple of patients were discharged home in time for the holidays.
I opened up my gifts on Christmas Eve while FaceTiming with my family. I’m pretty used to working over the Christmas holiday, but I’ve never had a Christmas where I wasn’t physically around my family. Thank goodness for FaceTime because it honestly didn’t feel lonely despite being alone.
Christmas day, I was back in the hospital seeing patients while wearing a light-up necklace my mother sent me. I’m all for bringing a little joy to patients stuck in the hospital for a holiday. My colleague invited me to have lunch with his family. The food was delicious and it was nice getting to know his wife and daughters. It was only the second time since moving here almost three months ago that I have socialized with anyone outside of the hospital setting. My colleague does wood work and made me this bowel from some local wood! I love gifts with a purpose and memory attached to them.
Hopes & Dreams
With a new year only a couple days away, I think most people become sentimental and plan for the future. I am no exception to that. Pre-pandemic, my years were filled with travel, concerts, adventures and so much fun. I’ve made a few videos over the years reflecting back on the previous year with travel videos and pictures.
Despite the global pandemic that changed so much and forced us all to slow down in our private lives, I was still able to do a few things. Pre-covid in the US, I was able to attend my Aunt’s birthday in Germany and sang a set for all her guests.
I returned to the States to immediately start working in Flu clinics and on the COVID floor as one of the first residents to do so in our hospital. COVID changed how we celebrated our graduation from residency but we made the best of it. The late summer allowed for a brief window where I was able to visit family in Germany and take my little sister on a trip to Italy for a few days. I returned from there to move across the country to South Dakota to start my life as an attending physician.
Working in healthcare and at times being over-worked in healthcare, I am still very grateful for the fact that I am out here every day helping patients and have a job to go to. I have so much respect for people to go around. To the people who have been working from home for the majority of this year. The utmost respect for the (mainly) mothers that have been keeping a household running, childcare managed and continue to work through it all the best they can. I have so much respect for the teachers who are working crazy overtime to try to continue to educate our future generations. Respect is also due to all the frontline and essential workers. My gratitude goes out to all the people who have been physically distancing, wearing masks, washing their hands, making personal sacrifices, and just being respectful of other people’s wellbeing.
2021
A change on the calendar from one year to the next doesn’t automatically solve all of the problems faced in 2020. Actually, it does nothing of the sort. But it feels like a new beginning. There is so much potential for this specified timeframe of a year to be better than the previous 365 days. Many things indicate positive change: the vaccine rollout, a new administration, and continued knowledge/experience gathered about the challenges we face. On a personal level, I will hopefully be able to safely celebrate a few weddings in 2021. Our family is expanding in size in multiple ways. Although I don’t think we will get quite back to the lives we would like to fully in 2021, I do believe we will be making big strides in the right direction.
I hope everyone has a safe New Years and continues to be safe, conscientious and loving.
mfg
